On reaching the summit of fashionability

Some time ago I went all 'Heston' on the classic Prawn Cocktail and pushed the recipe to the limits.

Since then it has burst back into fashion.  Heston himself has 'done a Heston' on it, and even the sour-faced genius Mark Hix has promoted his own version.  Of course, it's all down to me.  I was first! Somehow I always seem to be ahead of the trends...  But that was some time ago.  I won't bore you with any more of that.

Fortunately, it being the Christmas season, I had a chance to top my own heights of perfection with a second round of dabbling.

You may find this strange, but despite being a child of the Seventies, the closest I ever came to a Prawn Cocktail was a bag of crisps.  It just didn't figure in my diet at all.  The first time I tried one was a few years ago in the Canary Islands.  After dining on that, my friends and I taught a local bartender how to make cocktails.

"They used to serve cocktails here", he moaned, "but now they just do this" - and swung a disparaging hand over the laminated menu of gaudy premixes.  Gesturing towards the rack of shakers, he wailed, "We haven't used these for years".  He had a distinct lack of ingredients, so the best I could muster was the Brain Haemmorhage (Archers, Baileys and Grenadine) which he proceeded to make in his largest brandy glasses.  The barman was so delighted he treated us to free drinks for the rest of the evening, and we didn't recover for days.

Which has little to do with Prawn Cocktail.  Making the perfect Prawn Cocktail is about as sensible as giving a pig a facial - really, it's a fairly lurid dish at best.  But making the perfect one is a whole bunch of fun anyway.  The more time you spend over it, the better.  Here's a few hints.

Make your own Marie Rose.  Make it with freshly made mayonnaise.  Make it with your own tomato sauce.  To do this, render down the most fragrant tomatoes you can find until they are pulp, then sieve and reduce with garlic, secret spices, vinegar and sugar until you have the richest tomato sauce imaginable.  Lots of mustard.  OK, I'll let you off if you don't make this too.  Tabasco.  More than you think you need.  A good dash of Pastis.  Nothing is better than a hint of aniseed behind the prawn.

All that's just par for the course.  Marinade the prawns with lime, garlic and chilli.  Fry off at the last minute with a dusting of cornflour.  At least some of them should be butterflied, and have their tails on.  A variety of prawns, in a range of postures, adds some panache.

Then, the garnish.  This is where it stands or fails.  A Prawn Cocktail should be ludicrously glamorous.  Stick an umbrella in if you can.  The ensemble should look like a tropical sunset.  A spring onion Palm Tree will is a vital touch.

Put it all together.  In a martini glass, of course.  Then devour.

There you go.

Merry Christmas all!

Dining with a legend

It was years ago that I first heard, in whispered tones, a mention of the Sussex Pond pudding.  The idea was so compelling, and yet so repellant, that it brought nightmares for weeks afterwards.  I never forgot it.  And yet, I never tried it.  I simply reserved it for dinner party snobbery, where I could, with a wry, knowing smile, say -

"And what about the Sussex Pond pudding?" - 

- safe in the knowledge that the answer would be - "What??".  And I could elaborate, watching the stench of my own superiority drift above the other diners.

Even now I struggle to believe that the genteel seaside drifts of Sussex could have given rise to the Sussex Pond pudding.  What deviant mind could have considered creating a steamed pudding with a whole lemon at its heart?  To boil an entire, unadulterated lemon - for a dessert - is surely the imagining of an unhinged mind.  And yet, in Sussex, they not only imagined it but named it after their own county!

And yet I never cooked one.  

The problem, quite simply, is that I am not one for desserts.  I like the play and complexity of savoury, I like meat.  If I do have sweet, it won't be on its own but with said meat.   Nothing beats a cherry sauce on a duck.

Desserts aren't really for eating, they're for impressing people - and  no matter how fine a steamed pudding may be,  it simply doesn't match up in the seduction stakes.  Nigel Slater's chocolate mousse, however, scores every time.  Even when declared  "too powdery", as one dinner guest did.  Had I used Slater's favoured Valrhona, I may not have walked for a week. 

A steamed pudding, however?  A suet pudding?  Just the word -  'suet' -  is about as romantic as a retirement home  - and that's even before you start contemplating what it is - the minced arse-end of a cow.  Hardly a top scorer in the ranks of seductive ingredients.  So I never cooked one.

Until now.

The other day, while wondering how best to wrap up a winter warmer of "Partridge & Pear" on what must have been the wettest, grimiest day of the season, I remembered the legend of the Pond.  Its rich, steamy heat beckoned.  So I ditched the snobbery and embarked on one of the last great culinary adventures available to man.  The Sussex Pond pudding.

I won't bore you with the details - what few there are.  Simply a suet pastry, a lemon, and enough butter and sugar to surround the fruit.  Steamed, for a good three hours (or more - a lemon isn't a frisky fruit, it takes time to warm up, soften and release its juices).  Turn out and serve.  A swift cut of the knife and the pudding reveals its heart, that hot lemon aroma will fill the air.

(Yes, it was small - this was supposed to be an individual version; in result, more than enough for two)

 

The heavenly lemony nectar runs forth

It really was a miraculous result.  I don't think I have ever tasted quite such a delight.  Indescribably sweet, sharp and juicy.  It may not look like much, but the Sussex Pond really is heaven on a plate.  Go try.  You won't be disappointed.

The cheek of it

It's been a while.  No, I haven't stopped eating in my absence.  In fact I have acquired new tastes - not least for butter in drinks.  More of that another time, I think.  Back to the food.

The Ginger Pig* is a magical place.  I swung by there a while back and they had a sign - "Free Bones!" - outside.  I wandered up to the counter and asked if they had any free bones - they gave me a sackfull.  I made some beef stock - which one day will make a French onion soup.   But not today.

They also supply the best Toulouse sausages outside of Toulouse.  Toulousains may disagree, but they are not necessarily to be trusted - their city is riddled with open sewers and petty crime (see below).  Not that I can complain, their sausages are magnificent, and are best combined with Puy lentils to make that French classic, Sausage with Lentils.  You can buy it in jars from the shelves next to the Cassoulet isle in the Hypermarche.  Puy, incidentally, is an odd little stub of a place in the Massif Central, and well worth a visit. 

The Sewer of Toulouse - though they may claim it is a canal

But I digress.

While I swung by the Ginger Pig recently on my bacon rounds (did I mention they do the second best bacon in the country?) I couldn't help noticing a stack of Beef Cheeks.  I've never eaten a Beef Cheek before, let alone seen one, so I couldn't resist.  It is a cheap, rudimentary and slightly disturbing disc of meat that weighs more than it should.

The cheek is also perhaps the most used muscle on the whole of the animal.  A cow will ruminate ponderously day and night, working this part of the face into a dense, heavy, fibrous lump of muscle.  A steak it is not.  Slow cooking would be needed, I thought.  With some onions.

Lots of onions.  Reduced to a thick, sweet caramel vibe, thrown in the pot with the cheek, some of the beef stock, red wine and bay, garlic and thyme - lots of garlic.

And much as the cow will ruminate, the cheek should be left to ponder a while - three hours or more, then allowed to rest for a day or two to enrich those flavours, then another hour or more in a hot oven, lid off, with a heavy dose of salt to thicken the gravy.

Served, of course, with a scoop of dirty mash.

The meat is thick, gelatinous and flavoursome, like no other part of cow.  Well worth the time, and well worth cooking again.

(Apparently Heston has been braising Cheeks for the Little Chef.  I didn't know that, but coincidentally I read about it tonight, while tucking in).

* For those who don't know where to find the Ginger Pig, it lives almost anywhere in your dreams.  Just keep your eyes open and look for the snout.

The things we do

The sodden July may have been unpleasant, but it brought with it an exceptional, and early, bounty of fruit. I even had a ripe fig land at my feet the other day, something I have never seen in these parts before.

Fruit, of course, means foraging. It may be deeply fashionable now, but for some of us foraging is a way of life. I have done so since I was a child - when we would set out, industrious as machines, and return with a year's worth of blackberries - and have never found a reason to stop.

So last weekend I set out, with baskets and a brother in tow, to the mysterious wilds of Crouch End, to make the most of this bounty. I know of a secret stand of Damson trees that way, which hang heavy with their dusky little fruit at the best of times. This year they were incredible. Little else would drag my into that zone.

From there we headed to the field for more. Foragers had already beat paths deep into the brambles, but they had ignored the sloes.

The field is strange, and hangs heavy with Crouch End's emotional desolation. A dreary American ran loops around it, stopping only to execute vigorous plyometrics. A listless kid wandered near the bushes, shouting plaintive calls of 'Chester, Chester' to his lacklustre dog. The whole atmosphere was puntuated by the strangled wails of a teenage Thrash band practicing in the nearby school gym. Like I said, strange.

There we passed an elderly Italian couple, with buckets of blackberries and a home-made hoicking stick. We dropped only a scant nod in passing - foragers are always deeply suspicious of other parties - knowing that they may be secreting the location of an even greater crop.
With clothes stained and baskets heavy with blackberries, damsons, sloes and elderberries, we returned (via the pub, of course). Rounding the corner near home, I spotted a vast spatter of purple pigeon droppings on the pavement.

"That pigeon has been gorging itself on elderberries", I observed.
And there, just round the corner, was the heaviest elderberry crop I have seen anywhere. The tree was literally dripping with fruit. I would have pulled a few down - had I brought with me a ladder. The best fruit are inevitably the hardest to reach.

Left to right - elderberry liqueur, blackberry compote, damson gin, damson chutney, sloe gin

Some things are worth the wait.

Especially with food. Waiting is central to the allure of many delicacies. The well hung pheasant. The steak, 28 days later. The 100 year egg - and not to mention the vintage wine. A good chutney needs to mature, as does a pickle.

And this recipe must be the slowest I have done. It started last year, when I mooted the thought of wormwood green chilli sauce. It stuck with me - but I had to wait for the wormwood to grow, and then undergo a painful process of rectification you know only too well.

Even then, the wait was not over. I had to wait for the Chilli Man to visit the Farmer's Market. The Chilli Man only turns up once a month, always smiles, and laughs at everything. It must be the heat. I'm always delighted to while away a minute or two sampling his latest goods and chatting about polytunnels and the Scotch Bonnet crop (early, this season). The first time we met he threw me a handful of the delightful padrons. I first sampled these, unexpectedly, in Madrid, mounded - fried and salted - next to a fine steak. They are fragrant and wonderful, and one out of every ten is explosively hot.

Last weekend I was in luck - he had a bucketload of deep green peppers, which did not disappoint. I didn't even stop to chat about his poly-tubes, but rushed home and supplemented them with a fine array of other ingredients - some bird-eyes, a habanero or two, freshly juiced ginger, garlic, shallots.


Two challenges - keep it green, and avoid losing the wormwood scent. I tried to cook it only briefly, and threw in the strongly alcoholic extract at the last minute so it could boil off.

There is nothing wrong with an alcoholic sauce - it's just not what I was looking for.
As for the rest - I have to keep my secrets, of course. Though I can mention that my nose was nearly destroyed by a sudden burst of chilli fumes, and removing my contacts later in the evening was quite a shock!


So here it is.



Perhaps not as green as I would like - though when I sneaked a peek at a bottle of lurid green sauce in a local shop I couldn't help spotting the colourants in the ingredient list. Something I would not do. Now I just have to wait while it matures. Only then can the sampling begin. It may have worked, it may not. I really can't wait.

One for the journey

It's not all about the results, for me, it's often about the journey itself. Which is a good thing, especially when things don't quite work out. Such as my cassoulet, which was inspired by Mr Shannon's culinary work.

The cassoulet is, of course, a journeyman's food. Hearty, rich and fattening, full of delights, it is just the thing to spoon up after a long walk or ride. It is just as welcome packed into a jar, or tin, and preserved for the trip itself. The history of my many walking tours in France can be catalogued by the tinned cassoulets I have eaten. The most rewarding, if hardly gourmet, was spoooned from the tin in a Lourdes campsite. Heating a tin of cassoulet on a camp stove is a venture doomed to fail - it needs a four.

Amongst travellers, pork and beans has a strong tradition. The Vaqueros who, even to this day, herd cows on horseback through the barren, remote plains of Spain huddle over campfires in the evening to stir pots of chorizo and beans.


You will find a left-field variant of chorizo and chick-pea stew at Brindisa - more luxurious, but little different. The same goes for their American counterparts, as is well known. The Italians also do a different pork and beans, to which I am somewhat indifferent. So Cassoulet is just one amongst many.

It's the range of meats that does it. To make a cassoulet you need, at very least, some chunky Toulouse sausages, a good slab of pork (belly, of course), and - essentially - some duck confit. Which you should - of course - make yourself.

Confiting is deeply fashionable right now, so I needn't digress into the process. Chefs of the moment will confit almost anything - duck, pork, rabbit and fruit have all found their way into the lard. Its popularity may have something to do with the recessionary times, as the confit is the ultimate in comfort food. Easy on the fork, easy on the palate, and deeply enrichening. Gary Rhodes once confited some bacon, which was surprisingly effective.



Anyway. I digress. The pork, the meats, the beans, there are countless recipes out there and every one is right. It shouldn't be that complicated (but it can be). I didn't realise how few beans there are in a tin, so my ratios were all wrong. For some reason I was encouraged to add tomato puree, which gave the result a somewhat lurid orange hue. A French cassoulet is pale, on the way to bland and stodgy, as it should be.



Thrown in were the sausages, pork, a couple of lamb chops (lamb, you say?) and a brace of confit legs, fresh from the jar. Bits and bobs, this and that, and a good time in the oven - lid on, lid off.

Despite the colour and the want of beans, it tasted mighty fine. One to try again, I think. And next time I'll drop the orange.

Concluding the act of rectification

I know, I have been remiss. It has been weeks since I started, and I am continually sidetracked. Meanwhile, the Wormwood has flourished in this heat and could well be ready for a second, more flowery, cropping. Who knows.



So where were we? Oh yes. I was, in intent at least, explaining how to conduct an extraction of wormwood.

Many herbs are simply steeped in water or alcohol to retrieve the flavour. Wormwood needs steeping, and then some. The initial mash is inhumanly bitter and toxic - a mere taste will bring you out in the worst manner of gagging. I gnawed idly at a leaf, for curiosities sake. It was not to be recommended.

The only solution is to take an alcohol mash an distill it - gently, via a water bath. This withdraws the essence and leave the foulness behind. No simple matter. For starters, you need some exceedingly strong alcohol. And second, you need a still.

Fortunately, exceedingly strong alcohol can be found, on occasion, in Polish grocers. It may take some hunting. An easier option is to visit Gerrys on Old Compton Street, and ask for Rectified Spirit. This baby's only 0.1% shy of 80% alcohol, which apparently is where the law draws the line. I'm not sure what it's ordinarily for - as a snifter, it is quite an ordeal. The chaps at Gerrys won't bat an eyelid when you ask for this - though they may offer a free condom (they did this for my brother once, he never could explain quite why).



En passant, I paused for a fine coffee round the corner where they promise the finest beans (I forget the name), and later lunched with Mr Norton. It was a heady day. Anyway. To business.

You must Crush the Wormwood leaves lightly, and leave to soak in the spirit - overnight at most, perhaps less. The mash is the most wonderful rich green, which stains everything it cares to touch.



Once you have the spirit, go find a still. This is where the law may become more hazy. Distilling, they say, is illegal. Actually, it is not - it is rectification which is illegal, and then only if you don't have a license. Rectification, of course, is what makes weak alcohol strong. Now, if your alcohol content is already well nigh on 80% (ABV, not proof), you're not going to be making anything stronger. So no, this is not rectification - of alcohol, at least - so one is still on the right side of the law. One must assume.

This is not the first still I have made. In the past I extracted essential oils using a complex steam contraption, amongst other things. So I knew what to do. It did involve a torturous half hour watching the staff at Leyland SDM wrestling with the concept of measuring a coiled pipe, not to mention wrestling with the pipe itself ("are you stupid or what"), an unexpected drive-by conversation with a colleague ("you doing some plumbing?" - no - *ahem*) and a flurry of trips out to find suitable bungs. Even Argos receives a namecheck, though thankfully Sammy, on the High Street, had the goods and so saved the trip. Nothing is ever easy.

The arrangement, when finally assembled, was somewhat ramshackle and relied on delicate positioning of the cutlery drawer.


And there, finally, I took the mash into the boiler vessel and set it to heat. I watched, relaxed, whiled away the hours while the wormwood essence wormed its way through the coil of the still (the "worm"), and dripped, discreetly, into a bowl.




Who knows if such footage should be aired in public, but I value your discretion in these matters. This is, after all, science. Note in the background hear the trilling of a local blackbird.

It took some three or four hours to complete the process. Now and then I would dip a finger in the resultant liqour and taste, my nose filled with the heady herbal essence. It now remains sealed, bottled, waiting quietly for future use. Oh yes.

An act of rectification - part 2

Timing is everything. And, I admit, I didn't have time before to continue this epic. I will, I promise, divulge the mysteries of rectification - in time - but first, a little more background.

For a grower, timing really is everything. Us middle-class foodies may snort knowingly about seasonal produce, but there is far more to it than gnawing, pompously, on the tip of a Norfolk asperge. The seasons are our harsh and brutal masters, and there are no second chances.

I like to make marmalade, for instance. When I can. The Seville season lasts no more than two weeks, and if I miss it, I'm done for. It means a year without marmalade - for me, and the rest of my family.

Right now, the poppies are out. My crop failed for years, but this spring I turned the soil and ancient, dormant seeds split into life. With this heat, the heads are as big as a thumb. Slip a few of these into a vodka bottle and you'll have a fine sleeping draft - I know nothing of the legalities, so wouldn't recommend it. Blink, and they're gone to seed - no laud for you.



When harvesting herbs, it is not just the season that counts - there is more. The weather must be clear, bright and scorching hot. The air must be dry. You must pick at the apogee of the day, when the heat and brightness are highest. This brings all the essence to the fore - the scent, the botanicals, the oils, are all concentrated into the leaves.

Some years, the right day never arrives - which is why, in the early June heatwave, I took my chances with the wormwood.
It is not about the weather alone. With herbs, particularly the medicinal or mystical types, the act of picking must be correct. Ancient alchemists would have to harvest in time with rare planetary and lunar alignments. With such stringent rules, and such rare conjunctions of the elements that make the time right, the energy imbued in the process is increased many fold. The more difficult the act, the greater the energy.

In Magic, these processes become even more arcane - the wand must be cut from a virgin hazel with a knife never before used. By making the knife itself, the Magician can increase the energy, and power, and even more if he has mined the ore. It can be endless.

Which is why I had to harvest the Wormwood when I did. It is not about the flavour alone - it is about the energy, the very spirit of the herb, which vibrates through the bottle which will encapsulate it.


As for the process itself? Next time my friends, next time.

In a pickle

I am something of a pickler at heart. I have made many pickles, preserves, and chutneys in the past. It takes time, and considerable effort, for the dubious reward of a jar to relinquish to relatives.

This cucumber pickle, on the other hand, is the epitome of simplicity and only takes little more than an hour. It is a pickle only in essence, and somewhat Japanese in origin.

Simply take your cucumber and run it through a mandolin as thin as you can. The mandolin slicer has a strangely therapeutic effect and is highly recommended. Though there is always the risk of entering a mandolin trance and not waking until ones digits are somewhat curtailed. You could, of course, use a knife.

Mix up a juice with a teaspoon of sugar, half that of salt, a good serving of vinegar, the slightest dash of soy and a hint of mirin, if it is there. Mix well with the cucumber.

And then wait a little while. While you wait, why not think up some words which rhyme with cucumber, and compose a poem.

Before serving, just squeeze hard on the juice, and you will be left with that crispy floppiness that goes with a good pickle. The hardcore amongst us will drink that juice before the guests arrive. (The pickle will stand to be held in its liquor overnight, but it will lose some freshness).

It makes for artful arrangement.


Here, served beside my dry hot ribs - slow baked with a paste of onion, garlic, chilli, peppercorns (regular and Szechuan), and salt before superheating with a cheeky honey glaze. Nice.


Did you know that in Humberside there is a vegetarian restaurant called the Humber Cucumber? It is shaped like an upright cucumber, standing some twelve storeys tall. The dining area can only seat twelve - the rest is little more than a green-shrouded scaffold. It is something of a local landmark, as you may imagine.

An act of rectification - part 1

Wormwood. The stuff of legend. A dank and mysterious herb, silvery in sheen. It dispels worms, as its name may suggest. Intestinal worms, that is, not earth worms. More famously, it is a key ingredient in Absinthe, that legend of drinks. Riddled with thujone, it imparts a hazy green colour, induces hallucinations and ear-chopping mania, and generally leaves people insane. Or so they say.


I have cultivated wormwood for some time now - but it has been years since I extracted the juice. Back in 2005 I made my own dubious approximation of Absinthe, but I shouldn't talk about that - the legislative niceties are too complex. The bottle pictured below have been it - I can't be sure, there is no label. The twig is something of a mystery. An awful lot of things were hazy back then, not just my labelling.



Since then I have long wanted to conduct another extraction - indeed, last year I promised my dear readers a bright green chilli and wormwood sauce. Last weekend that time came. I will tell you more - much more.

But first, let us disabuse ourselves of a few myths.

Absinthe has never made anyone mad - though it has made all too many people insanely drunk. Though absinthe is a strong drink it shouldn't be drunk strong, it should be drunk diluted.

Wormwood doesn't make absinthe green. That'll be the tarragon. Wormwood distillate is clear.

Thujone, the active ingredient in wormwood, is not a hallucinogen. There is more thujone in common sage than in wormwood. Nobody ever got high from stuffing a chicken.

Van Gogh did not cut off his own ear. A so-called friend did it for him.

I imagine I have shattered enough dreams for now. Hold fast for the next episode, where we delve deeper into the mysteries of wormwood extractions.

In the meantime, why not enjoy a cocktail? This little shooter's still holding out for a suitable name. 50% Jagermeister, 50% Hills, 100% destruction. I have only ever served two of these in my lifetime, and both recipients voided their stomachs shortly afterwards.

Scotched

My lifelong culinary ambition has always been to cook Scotch Eggs. Ever since childhood I was gripped by a fascination for these golden orbs of joy, with their meaty shell and the unexpected delight of an egg nestled within. Finally, after countless years of research and procrastination, I have achieved that dream.

A Scotch Egg is a peculiar abberation - for there are only two places you could find an egg wrapped in meat. One is the Scotch Egg, and the other is inside a chicken. (Some would mumble about a Gala Pie, but that is altogether different and no longer mentionable in a polite society). This makes the Scotch a unique and rare delicacy. Sadly, modern shop-bought Scotches are dismal - they rattle like maracas, containing a loose, rubbery egg in a dried biscuit-crust of stale pork. The Duke of Clarence serves them well, crisp, smooth and warm. But to my own.



Being a novice frier, I thought it best to start small - as small as a Quail's egg, in fact. Or a dozen. Cute little things, they boil up in no time. In some countries they boil their eggs for a dozen hours, until blue and sulphurous, but not for this recipe. The yolk should still be moist, only a tantalising gasp from liquid.

The meat concerned me more. I needed something rich, creamy and beguiling, so no ordinary sausagemeat would do. Instead I took a chunk of belly pork. It has deep, earthy meat, and thick layers of fat which, when cooked, acquire a near cloacal lubricity.


I needed even more - the musty, straw-laden scent of the meat was not enough, I wanted a beguiling creaminess. So I espied the Goat Cheese Man at the Kentish Town farmer's market, and I debated various cheeses before tasting one which was the precise thing I was looking for.

You can't just mince for a Scotch, the texture should be more of a mousse - so to my blender again, the meat, a shallot, various (secret) spices, parsley, and the goats cheese. Once blended, the mouse should rest for some time, to allow those flavours to parlay.


Then, to the steps. The good bit. Wrap the eggs in the meat. The wise will ball the meat into a size not far removed from that of the eggs, for this will give you sufficient for a shell. Flour, dip, crumb, dip and crumb again. Proper breadcrumbs, made from bread.


You may wish to rest after wrapping, and again after dipping - your fingers, at least, will appreciate the favour. Once rested they can be further moulded if necessary, to attain the most eggy demeanour. And then fried at a good 180 until done.


There they are - a clutch of tiny eggs, each cloaked in their own rich, creamy drape of meat. For the egg, it's almost a homecoming. For the plate, what could be better?

Shanks for the memories

A shank is always good, but a shank of venison is unforgettable.

I picked them up from Borough Market one day, on a whim. I had only gone to the Deer Man to collect some bones, for stock, but the shanks were irresistable, and irresistably cheap. I grabbed a couple. They then languished in the freezer for some weeks - as with the more common shank of lamb, they require a slow, laid back style of cooking unsuited to the average evening.

No better way to cook a shank than in a pot. So, you need a pot. I have a pot:


But what to go in the pot with them? There was only one option - a heavy dose of Trotter Gear.

Trotter Gear is a universal panacea devised by the legendary Fergus Henderson of the St John Restaurant. It is made from shaved trotters, the stock of a chicken, a bottle of Madeira stolen from your Grandfather's drinks cabinet and a heavy dose of love. This thick, unguent liquid magically transforms the mundane into the sublime. For those who cannot bear the thought of shaving trotters, the gear can occasionally be obtained, in bags, from retail outlets.

Myself, I spent a long and somewhat queasy weekend dabbling with trotters and a brace of Nose to Tail books. Since then I have obsessed over those dainty little ballerina-toes of the swine, and even dream about them - but that's another story. Back to the deer.

SO, inspired by Mr Henderson, I browned off some shallots, seared the meat, and potted it with the gear, a handful of suitable spices (juniper, bay, cinnamon, and so on) a handful of madeira-soaked prunes and a good dash of reduced red wine.

They stayed in the oven, on a low heat, for a few hours.


And here they are, shanks of venison with trotter and prunes. You'll kick yourself if you don't lick that sauce off the plate.


Oh yes.

Eggs Benedict

What more can be said about Eggs Benedict that has not already been said. It is, absolutely, the ultimate in breakfasting.

I recall staying for some days with friends in Bill Clinton's favoured Santa Monica hotel. There we perched ourselves at the breakfast bar each morning after a restorative jog towards Muscle Beach, and dined like Kings on eggs benedict, miniature franks, and egg-white omelettes. Our overdrafts sank by the mouthful. What could be better.

For a Benedict you need a muffin, of course. By that, I mean an English muffin, not a plastic-wrapped greasy cake. How American muffins hit the British consciousness I don't know, but I imagine fewer would be eaten if people knew it took half a quart of engine oil to make each one.

Freshly baked English muffins, on the other hand, are sadly all too rare a sight. So when I spotted some that the Flour Station bakery have resurrected the tradition and offer them at Borough Market, I could not resist. These are the proper deal - a full two inches thick, light and glorious.

To make a Benedict you need more than a muffin, of course. Everything has to be perfect - you can't throw any old thing in there. So I picked up some ham in Salvino's and the freshest, organicest eggs I could, "cyder" vinegar, various flavours for the reduction, and set to.


Hollandaise sauce is easy, if you have patience and talent. Both of which I have in droves, of course.

Lemon juice is for weaklings, you should start with a proper vinegar reduction - shallots, celery leaf, bay, peppercorns and mace flavoured mine. Gary Rhodes would suggest cardamom and star anise, which I shall try next time. The longer you spend beating while you add the butter the better - a Hollandaise shouldn't drip, it should stand a spoon or two. Mine was beat for half an hour or so - perhaps more, as my friend was late for brunch - and acquired an airy, bubbly lightness that belied the full pound of butter at its heart.


So to poaching. I must confess, I struggle to poach. I've tried vortexes, vinegar, deep water, shallow water, still water and rolling boils. Hot eggs, cold eggs, small, large. This time I went for broke with half a bottle of vinegar, a good almost-roll, and the freshest eggs I could muster, and finally managed something close to the Gary Rhodes walnut whip. On a couple of them, at least. Success at last!


And, yeah, here it is. Toasted muffins drenched in butter, warmed smoked ham, the eggs, the sauce, and a sprinkling of wild garlic (I had to do something with it).



Nothing could beat this on a Saturday morning. Nothing, at least, on a plate.

Turning over a new leaf

Forgive me, dear reader, if I wax somewhat self-indulgent today. For thanks to the glorious weather I have been taken by the joys of spring.

For me, spring is announced by the full sprouting of the Mandrake. A plant both rare and magical - on whim, it may be mysterious, lethal, shielding or full of spite. Woe betide the fool who dares to drag it from its soil, for they may hear it scream, and that will kill them. I am not joking!



My Mandrake keeps to a schedule unlike any other - its leaves are the first to arrive, it blooms, fitfully, while there are no insects to sup of its juice, and it will be gone to ground long before the Solstice knocks. It has never borne fruit, though that, perhaps, is due to the lack of a suitable mate.

Many years ago, as a student, I purchased some dried Mandrake root from a crusty in the sadly long departed Kensington Market. This I steeped with alcohol to make a tincture, which I drank one afternoon, while sitting in the sun in the middle of the campus. It was deeply bitter. To this day, I cannot quite explain my motivation.

I used to have the Mandrake's distant sister, Henbane, which - being annual - did not last out the year. Strangely beautiful and yet vile at heart, it will kill you so much as look at you. I bottled up some of the flowers, in vodka, just in case. I still have that liquid on my shelf.

So, to Spring, and while a hearty chunk of deer bone simmered into stock (this I purchased from a monomaniac Venison vendor at Borough Market), I decided it was time to turn over what little soil I have to food. Being somewhat haphazard in my planting I accidentally pulled out a few items I had shoved in previously - sprouting remains of dinner, mostly. And then showered the earth with - onion seeds, strange ball-head carrot seeds, various greens, and whatnot. Who knows whether they will sprout. Probably - in my experience, it is much more difficult to stop a plant from growing than to let it grow.

So I may be in for a feast.

Of course, the snails will love it. They always do. But if they're not careful, I'll eat them.

Dastardly deeds

You may well recall my recent mention of the surly, yet well-fed, folks at the Kentish Town farmers market. In my excitement over the oysters I left aside a brace of plump, bleeding wood pigeons for another day. These I pulled from the icebin yesterday, in order to indulge. Pigeon is a fine bird, but not one I have cooked in the past - so my culinary antics were, perhaps, a touch experimental.

Other than breast there is little of note on a pigeon - on a plucked one, at least. The live variety also comes equipped with a beady eye, an infuriatingly monotone whoop and a supernatural skill at dodging air rifle shots. So I removed the breast.


The carcasses I then fried off and threw into a pot with veg, for stock.



I took enough breast for a man like myself (three, it turns out) and pan fried it briefly, to keep it pink. Too briefly, I discovered - I had to pull a last minute manoeuvre to temper the rawness at their heart. I served them on a bed of spinach, with a (slightly moribund) blueberry jus and a hearty accompaniment of wild mushroom linguini.



And what of the rest?

So, to day two, where I spent the journey home suffering febrile dreams of dry, fibrous scraps of meat bound to the tangled legs of al-dente pasta. I had somehow to make it real. I couldn't quite envisage how to soften the blow until a leek danced before my eyes. I then dallied with an artichoke at the greengrocers stall, and my triumvirate was complete.

A pasta should never have more than three key ingredients - and even three is often one too many - so this was dicing with risk at its best.

I shredded the scraps from the stock bones and whipped up the remaining breast into something of a pulp in my new mini blender (oh, the joy). Armed with shreds, pulp and stock I set to.


The leek I shredded as finely as possible (I am a dab hand with a sharp knife as my scars will attest, but leek slices do have an irritating habit of rolling asunder), and sautéed these off in butter. Removing the leeks, I lobbed in the pigeon meats with a touch of garlic. Fried up, add the stock, throw the leek back in and boil it off. Chopped up marinaded artichoke heart thrown in at the last minute.


And this, a truly sublime dish of pigeon linguini, could not be beat. Enjoy.

Pieces of eight

What better way to celebrate spring than with a handful of oysters?

I picked these up from the Kentish Town farmers market. They like to think of themselves as the Parliament Hill farmers market, but I don't. It has a slightly shabby air with none of Borough's bare faced glamour. No more than a few stalls pitched in the back end of a car park, their forts held by some sour-faced and heartily obese individuals (from the farms, presumably). Both times I've been, the atmosphere has been pervaded by sausage smoke and the incessant whining of a dog, tied up against the back fence. I'm not sure if the dog is a 'feature', but there is definitely a chalk-board announcing its presence.

So, to the oysters. Anyone who has never eaten them should do so. With my inlander's long-bred fear of anything watery and raw I steered clear for years, until I was convinced that it was time to break that taboo. Tasting them that first time was an absolute revelation.

I went on, not long after, to visit Paris, where I ate two dozen for breakfast. This was on the pavements outside a small Montparnasse café where a man shucked 100 every minute, and Parisians balanced their plates on the bonnets of parked cars. I made that trip for two reasons only, the oyster-eating being one of them.


Shucking, of course, is an art, and is best done with the correct tool. Not willing to risk snapping a Global, I considered my trusty Spyderco. This is my third - the first was lost and the second confiscated by an overzealous customs official. I soon realised the blade was too slender, and so rummaged instead for a Reindeer knife, brought back Finland by my mother, which was perfect for the job.


So after a brief tussle (and not a little mess), my nose was filled with the pure, heady scent of estuary waters, tidal flats and drifting weed. This is what oysters are all about. The sea, in a shell.

What a delight. This really is heavenly joy.




I know some scour their oysters with tabasco, but that is missing the point. Even more than the slightest squeeze of lemon is too much. And for the beginners out there - no, you do not swallow them whole no matter what they said back in the 1970's. It's in the chew that the taste comes alive.